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“I have absolutely no idea what she just said,” Brady said to Xander. “But it sounded hilarious, and I’m going to give her so much shit for it for the next several months.”
Xanders chest shook against my face as he laughed with my brother. The sound made me smile. I liked his laugh. I liked everything about him. Why didn’t I like him before? I furrowed my brows as I tried to remember why I had thought he was a liar. My concentration broke as the world changed, and a familiar scent wafted with Xanders around me.
“Oh my,” Alma’s voice purred, the smell of her cigarettes telling me exactly where we were. “You’re a tall drink of water. Brady, who’s your friend? And what is going on with your sister?”
“She got a little bit of magic intoxication going on. Where is Mom?” Brady asked.
I tried to turn away from Xander’s chest to look at my adoptive grandma, the only grandmother figure that Brady and I have ever known. But the minute I pulled away from his chest, I felt sick. I pressed back into his chest with a groan, hearing Alma chuckle behind me.
“She’s in your dad’s office with him. Be sure to knock first.”
“Gross,” I groaned, my voice still muffled against Xander’s chest.
I could feel him chuckle as he heard me, the world swaying with his steps as he entered the packhouse behind Brady. It didn’t take long for my mother’s voice to be cooing in my ear while Dad introduced himself to Xander, asking who my mate was.
“Mate,” I sing-songed drunkenly. “I found my mate.”
Chapter Seven
Xander
I placed Liberty in her bed at her mother’s request. She had fallen asleep after the witch Luna pulled out some of the magic that had been intoxicating her; she told me that she would be asleep for a few hours.
“This will give us a chance to get to know you,” Luna Diana said with a smile. She tucked the blankets around Liberty gently, then waved for me to follow her out the door. “Come down to the family den. It will give us some privacy from the rest of the pack.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I retort, following my mate’s mother. She laughed, waving me off as she told me to call her Diana. All I could think when I walked with her was that she was the last person to see my mother alive.
I had brief memories of Mother from when I was a child. Not as many as I had of Diana herself, really. The witch had always been in the nursery visiting the witchlings; often I was there, too.
When the night of Mother and my uncle’s death came, I remembered watching Mother going after Diana. The memory had filled me with shame while growing up. I had hoped that Diana would be okay. My child mind convinced me that I had caused Mother’s death over Diana’s with a small hope for the woman who had been so kind to all the children in the nursery.
Now she stood before me. Yet, I felt no animosity toward her at all and none of the desire I had felt only yesterday toward the Crete witch, who my father blamed for his mate’s demise. Looking at her, I only felt happy that my mate’s mother seemed to accept me with no fight.
“So,” Diana said, hooking her arm through mine. “You’re a rogue, I take it.”
A lump formed in my throat then as I nodded. “Yes, I am.”
She looked at me from head to toe and back again. “You were born in the pack, though. You’re too old to have been born rogue. Who are your parents?”
I felt paled at the question, but knew what the pack had known before. “My father is Milo Cretan.”
Diana chuckled. “Oh yes, I remember him. I recall you as well. I’m glad you were able to make your way back to us. I was sad too, because all the children had to go in the direction that their parents went as they made their choices.”
We entered the den. Orion and Brady already sitting on two plush chairs.
“Remember who?” Orion asked as he rose to his feet to greet his mate.
“Milo Cretan,” she said, taking his arm as she released mine.
“He was the one who insisted on everyone leaving the pack, wasn’t he?” Orion asked. The two of them sat on a love seat across from the two chairs. I took the one Orion had vacated as Diana nodded.
“Yes, he was. He is also Xander’s father.”
I felt my body stiffen as I looked over at Orion, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was certain that he was turning against my bond with his daughter after knowing that my father had led the others against him.
Orion looked me up and down before nodding. “I can see the resemblance, though. Xander seems to enjoy the better aspects. He is taller than I remember his father as well. How is your old man? Still claiming that I’m the ruin of the pack’s greatness?”
I relaxed a bit, though reluctantly nodded. “Dad still holds loyalty to the Chios family.”
